12/07/07
With EJF running a December special on the A-10 Warthog for $249.99 I finally decided to break down and order one. Since it's normally $279, I figured the discount would at least offset the shipping charges. It's available in green or gray and I opted for the gray version. At the time of the order I was still undecided on power options. A couple of days later (12/09)  fate made up my mind for me after destroying the airframe of my HET Rafale.

12/17/2007
My EJF A-10 arrived today in a monster sized box, (which made the $26.95 shipping charge understandable) and the kit looks to be of pretty decent quality. The kit does come complete with fans and fixed landing gear along with an assortment of hardware and laser cut parts for completion. The construction manual though, is a bit sparse and sketchy. This could be a good one to do a construction write up on. Be sure to check the photo page for additional details.

12/24/07
Very little progress has been made on the build so far. The fans have been assembled the cutout made for the horizontal stabilizer/elevator, etc. My kit has several laser cut “mystery parts” in the respect that there is no mention in the construction guide as to where they might go. This leaves me wondering if perhaps they should have been pre-installed before it left the factory? You can find where I decided they should go on the photo page.
When I 1st contemplated purchasing this kit I asked Robert @ EJF about the construction and he referred me to a thread in RC Groups. I might mention that some of the problems listed in that thread appear to have been remedied in the kit I got. The holes for attaching the wing lined up perfectly on my kit as did the ones for mounting the fan nacelles. The former for the nose gear appears to be attached more solidly as well.

12/29/07
After a week of debating with myself over the installation of retracts, decided to go with fixed gear instead. The ones that looked small enough to use I was afraid would be too wimpy to hold up to some of my landings and a grass runway. If you are inclined to install them, I did find this thread in RC Groups that covered an installation. With the decision made I finally went to work on it in earnest, and pretty much completed the construction today. It also had it’s 1st crash as I had it sitting on my workbench (fully assembled with battery) while working on the canopy. I bumped it and it rolled off into the floor tail 1st. It did crack the wood in the right side vertical fin, but I repaired it. All that remains is to better secure the canopy attachment system I used, adjust control throws, and re-bind the receiver after all the setup is done.

12/31/07
Did absolutely nothing with the A-10 yesterday other than taking it out to MCRC field for a few photos. This morning, I considered making a run to SRQ for a test flight (after finishing the few details) but weather changed my mind since it started raining and the wind came up. Gray sky and gray plane with a 15-20 mph crosswind approach are not the best combination for test flights. So, applied the decals and painted the canopy instead. Since the manual makes no reference to decal placement, I did find this page with quite a few photos of A-10's to work from.

Bits ‘n’ Pieces
Power on this build comes from a pair of HET 3W’s with TS-36 esc’s. Flite Power 5300 ma 4s Evo-Lite. All from my ill fated Rafale that I stalled trying to get it off a grass runway. (Crunched the nose all the way back to the battery tray) So, that cut expenses down a bit. Even re-used all the same radio gear since it was unhurt. 3 Hi-Tech HS-65’s, Spektrum AR6100 receiver and Hyperion UBEC. I did have to make 2 new ESC to battery harness’s since the ones from the Rafale were a bit too short. Figure at least a 30” run for those.
All up weight on this one is 5 lbs and 10 oz. With the way I set up the gear, CG came up right at the rearmost (75 mm from wing leading edge) and 1/2” of lead just ahead of the nose gear brought it to the 70 mm forward suggested setting. Control throws were set at the recommended 20 mm up/down for elevator and 10 mm up/down on the ailerons.
Although I stretched out the build time on this ARF over a couple of weeks, it could be completed in 15-20 working hours easily if you have all the stuff you need on hand. (2, 12” servo extensions for ailerons. 1, 24” extension for steering servo, etc) Overall quality of the kit seems really good to me. Other than wishing I had a cute little Chinese girl with small hands to get into some of the tighter spaces, it was actually an enjoyable build. The only part I had to do any real fitting on was the battery tray. Since it was a laser cut piece I’m guessing that maybe one of the fuselage formers might have been just a hair out of position when glassed in. I removed about 1/8” of material from the ends to make it fit. Not difficult to accomplish and a considerably better quality kit than some of the stuff I’ve built recently. I would recommend this one to a friend, or anyone else interested in building a Warthog.

1/5/08
Even though this video has someone else at the controls, I did the trim flight on this one myself. It flew great after about 8 clicks of up trim to get it to a point of maintaining flat & level flight. No aileron trim was needed, but with them set at the recommended settings rolls were very sluggish. Even though this video doesn’t show it, it tracks true through loops and has ample power to pull them off even at it’s 5 lb 10 oz all up weight.
It’s not overly fast with a guess of top speed being around the 70-75 mph mark. But, real A-10's aren't super fast either. It will turn very tight if you want it to and slows down nicely with no bad habits. It will flie well at 1/2 to 3/4 throttle, too. This flight pulled about 2600MA from the battery and heated it up to about 110 degrees. I'd estimate that 6 minute flights could be possible before hitting cutoff voltage, but really don't like putting that much heat on a battery. They seem to live longer that way.